Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Palmer-Brown, Holiday Up for Awards, Saad and Lebanon Fall

Some news for you today.

Palmer-Brown and Holiday up for US Soccer awards.

US Soccer has announced the finalists for the year end awards for 2013, and two players for local teams were named finalists.

Sporting KC's latest home grown player, Erik Palmer-Brown is up for Young Male Athlete of the Year. Palmer-Brown represented the US at the U15, U17, and U18 levels this year competing in tournaments in Italy, Japan, and France. Palmer-Brown is up against three other professional, Kellyn Acosta of FC Dallas, Shane O'Neill from Colorado, and Will Trapp from Columbus. Also nominated is Shaquell Moore, from the US U17 team.

Also nominated for one of the awards is NWSL MVP and FCKC midfielder, Lauren Holiday, is nominated for Female Athlete of the Year. Holiday had 12 goals and nine assists for FC Kansas City this year in her MVP season. She added three goals and six assists while playing with the US national team. Holiday is up against Sydney Leroux, Carli Loyd, Alex Morgan, Christen Press, and Abby Wambach.

Saad and Lebanon Fall to Iran

It ended up being the minor news of the day in Beirut after the bombing, but Soony Saad and the Lebanese national team played Iran in a big AFC Asian Cup qualifier. After the bombing though, the game was played behind closed doors with no fans in attendance. Saad ended up being an unused substitute in the game as Lebanon fell to Iran 4-1.

The loss put Lebanon in 3rd place in the group with one game left. There isstill a chance that Lebanon can qualify for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup though as the best 3rd place team. They currently are the second best team, one point behind Iraq. The final match day sees Lebanon play in Thailand against the fourth place team in their group. Iraq meanwhile plays at home against China who is second place in their group.

There is another question though and that's Group A, where only one team has played 5 games. Oman has clinched a spot in the tournament having played just four games. Jordan is on 5 points after only 3 games. Syria has played 5 games and sits on 4 points, while Singapore has 3 points from 4 games. So there's certainly some questions there that could keep Lebanon out of the tournament.